Update Our Culture, Not Just Copyright Laws; New York Times, 3/17/15

M.K. Asante, New York Times; Update Our Culture, Not Just Copyright Laws:

"A much-needed change in copyright laws will certainly usher in a ton of new cases. Cases even more egregious and blatant than “Blurred Lines.” Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) reminds us in his song “Rock N Roll”:

You may dig on the Rolling Stones

But they ain't come up with that ... on they own

He was speaking about the dark history of copyright infringement, and often downright theft, from black musicians. The Rolling Stones biographer Stanley Booth described their music as “the songs of old black men too poor to put glass in their windows.""

Pitt, CMU and UPMC hope to remake health care via new big data alliance; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 3/16/15

Bill Toland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Pitt, CMU and UPMC hope to remake health care via new big data alliance:

"Pittsburgh is making a big bet on big data.

UPMC, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University on Monday announced the formation of the Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance to “revolutionize health care and wellness” by using data to detect potential outbreaks as well as create health care innovations that will spawn spinoff companies.

The clinical goal, the leaders of the three institutions said, is to remake health care so that it is at once more computerized, yet more personalized, using millions of gigabytes of accumulated health records to predict and treat patients’ health issues in a manner far more specific than is possible today.

And the business development goal, the leaders said, is no less than a Pittsburgh-based “moonshot” for health information technology, one that could make Pittsburgh the global epicenter for such research.

If the alliance unfolds as outlined, it someday could rival the scope of the nation’s largest university-led data-sharing projects (such as the ongoing Dartmouth Atlas health policy research partnership with Dartmouth College) and its biggest artificial clinical intelligence projects (such as the IBM Watson team’s foray into the health care realm)."

What’s Wrong With the ‘Blurred Lines’ Copyright Ruling; New York Times, 3/11/15

Jon Caramanica, New York Times; What’s Wrong With the ‘Blurred Lines’ Copyright Ruling:

"Besides, in an age in which popular music is incredibly diverse, with more sonic references, instruments and digital trickery available than ever, using sheet music as a measure of a song’s originality is a weak tactic, and possibly an irresponsible one. The “Blurred Lines” verdict is a victory for an outmoded law, but also an outmoded way of thinking about music.

There are untold things that static sheet music can’t capture: tone, feel and intensity or texture, all of which are as important to modern songwriting as the notes, and probably more so. Relying on the sheet music exposes a generational bias, too — implicit in the premise of the case is that Mr. Gaye’s version of songwriting is somehow more serious than what Mr. Williams does, since it is the one that the law is designed to protect.

There is, it should be said, a similarity in the bass lines of the two songs, and perhaps, more broadly, in their shared lite-funk feel. And it’s likely that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams didn’t help their case by contending in interviews around the song’s release — including one in The New York Times — the psychic and literal debts they owed Mr. Gaye, and specifically “Got to Give It Up.” (Mr. Thicke testified, though, that he had barely any input in the writing of the song, a different explanation from what he gave the news media.) Often in the credits that come with an album, the phrase “contains an interpolation of” will appear. That generally means the song borrows from something else, but in a way that’s less than an actual sample or a heavily repurposed lyric or melody. It can feel like a legally codified version of a good-will gesture — certainly “Blurred Lines” might have benefited from such a designation up front."

Industry Urges Congress to Support Copyright Law; Hollywood Reporter, 3/10/15

Alex Ben Block, Hollywood Reporter; Industry Urges Congress to Support Copyright Law:

"The industry group CreativeFuture and the Copyright Alliance announced Tuesday they have joined forces to have more than 1,200 of their members send letters to members of the Senate and of Representatives in support of copyright law, which is under review by the 114th Congress.

“Our copyright system is not perfect,” say the letters, “but, like democracy, it is better than the alternatives. It works. We urge Congress to resist attempts to erode the right of creatives to determine when and how they share their works in the global marketplace.”"

‘Blurred Lines’ Infringed on Marvin Gaye Copyright, Jury Rules; New York Times, 3/10/15

Ben Sisario and Noah Smith, New York Times; ‘Blurred Lines’ Infringed on Marvin Gaye Copyright, Jury Rules:

"According to the jury’s decision, Nona and Frankie Gaye, two of Marvin Gaye’s children, are to receive $4 million in damages, plus $3.3 million in profits attributed to Mr. Thicke and Mr. Williams, as well as about $9,000 in statutory damages for the infringement of copyright. Clifford Harris Jr., better known as T.I., who contributed a rap in the song, was found not liable.

The decision is one of the largest damage awards in a music copyright case, some legal experts said. In one of the few comparable cases, Michael Bolton and Sony were ordered to pay $5.4 million in 1994 for infringing on a 1960s song by the soul group the Isley Brothers."

Jurors hit Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams with $7.4-million verdict; Los Angeles Times, 3/10/15

Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times; Jurors hit Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams with $7.4-million verdict:

"A federal jury found Tuesday that the 2013 hit song "Blurred Lines" infringed on the Marvin Gaye chart-topper "Got to Give It Up," awarding nearly $7.4 million to Gaye's children.

Jurors found against singer-songwriters Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke, but held harmless the record company and rapper T.I."

CrowdFlower Launches Open Data Project Covering Everything From Climate Change To #ThatDress; TechCrunch, 3/3/15

Anthony Ha, TechCrunch; CrowdFlower Launches Open Data Project Covering Everything From Climate Change To #ThatDress:

"Crowdsourcing company CrowdFlower allows businesses to tap into a distributed workforce of 5 million contributors for basic tasks like sentiment analysis. Today it’s releasing some of that data to the public through its new Data for Everyone initiative.

Founder and CEO Lukas Biewald (a friend of mine from college) told me that last year, the company quietly began asking some of its customers if they were willing to make the data they gathered through CrowdFlower public, and now it’s officially launching the initiative with its first batch of data sets.

Biewald said this grew out of his own frustrations about the lack of open data during his time as a grad student and as a scientist at search startup Powerset. His hope is to turn CrowdFlower into a central repository where open data can be found by researchers and entrepreneurs. (Factual was another startup trying to become a hub for open data, though in recent years, it’s become more focused on gathering location data to power mobile ads.)"